Posts Tagged ‘Social Networks’

Each year consumers spend more time and more money online. The web is becoming completely integrated into our lives. Social connections are being made, conversations with companies taking place, relationships nurtured, whole wardrobes collected, news consumed and holidays are planned using the web. This adoption and widespread use of the web in all parts of our lives results in more fragmented online consumer behavior. This makes it increasingly harder to provide an objective overview of the online behavior of consumers.

To give detailed insights into the online behavior of consumers in a mature digital market we tracked the digital lives of more than 10.000 Dutch Consumers using our proprietary audience measurement technology. And here’s a short overview of some of the findings.

The Big Three dominate

Consumers spent approx. 60% of their time on The Big Three, which consist out of Social Networks, E-mail, and Search. This is followed by the trio of Shopping, News and Games. When looking at the total amount of visits per category we see a rearrangement of the Big Three and a more evenly distributed playing field. Search is most frequently visited (18,2%), followed by E-mail (11,8) and Social Networks (11,4%). Looking at the consumers behavior this is very logical. People tend to search quite frequently, but quickly. Social networks, however, have a different footprint. The volume is a bit lower, but consumers spend high amounts of time on them.

More time spend on Facebook than any other social network

What will come to know surprise to all of us is that Facebook is the nr. 1 social network in The Netherlands. It should be noted however that this is only since halfway 2011. Before that a popular local social network, Hyves, was in control. When looking at engagement (time on site, avg. pageviews per visit) it clearly shows that Facebook is in the lead. A quite interesting finding is that people, even though it just recently launched, spend more time per visit on Google+ compared to Twitter. The bite-sized content of Twitter definitely contributes to this. Another fascinating insight is that women are more engaged with social networks compared to men. More women spend more time on site and view more pages per visit compared to their male counterparts.
Google absent in Social, but dominates Search

After the initial introduction of Google+ there was a huge spike in traffic. However after the big rise, there was a great drop off and traffic reached a mere 2% penetration in our panel. Also when looking at the characteristics of the visits it clearly doesn’t the levels of engagement other platforms are providing.

What Google lack in social, it makes up in Search. Google absolutely dominates the search market in The Netherlands. It accounts for 95,8% of the search volume. Other competitors are near non-existing. Bing follows as a very distant with share of 2,4%, Ask.com 1,6% and Yahoo comes in forth with a meager 0,2%. The adoption of the additional services of Google (e.g. Maps, Mail) shows a classic long tail. While Maps and Mail are often visited during the week, the other services (Docs, News, Calendar, Video, Plus) lack any real traction.
Implications for Research in the Mobile World

This report tells about 90% of the story. And this will only steadily decrease in the near future. Why? Of course because the continuous rise of mobile usage by consumers. As outlined in the introduction this perfectly fits into the information snacking behavior consumers nowadays display. Moving back and forth between devices during different stages of the buying process.

The most important implication for research would be that we must move to an integrated multi-channel research approach. Not focussing on separate devices but on integrated multi-channel customer behavior. The consumer moves freely, quickly and seamlessly on multiple devices through cyberspace. They’re no longer bounded to specific platform for his or her journey. We shouldn’t be either in research.

About the study

These insights are part of a more extensive report (available for free in PDF format) called ‘State of the Web’. This elaborates on the behavior of consumers in specific categories such as Social Networks, Search, and Shopping. With our unique passive audience measurement technology we tracked the digital lives in 2011 of a representative panel which consists of approx. 10.000 Dutch consumers. We collected tens of gigabytes of data, which was used as input for the report.

Internet users in Mexico are flocking to social networks, making them a favorite means of expression and source of entertainment. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are leading social media usage and are expected to thrive financially as brands tap into a highly engaged audience.

According to eMarketer estimates, social networking in Mexico will increase by 17.9% in 2012, making it the fifth-fastest-growing market worldwide. Much of this expansion will come from Facebook, which is expected to reach 25.6 million users in the country by the end of this year.

In terms of general video ad viewing across online formats in Mexico, 75% of respondents recalled seeing video ads on a PC or laptop in the last week and 23% recalled seeing video ads on non-PC devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, in the same time period. More importantly, of those who recalled encountering videos ads, about three-quarters of consumers on both desktop and mobile devices actually watched the video ads served to them. And, crucial to the social sphere, both PC (16%) and non-PC device (25%) viewers were willing to recommend or share the commercial with others.

I am sure this is the question which many social media marketers have been thinking about for a long time : How to make the content go viral.

We have an internal joke when a client or prospect asks us to help them create something viral.

We say, “Sure! Have two guys kick one another in the privates and it’s sure to go viral!”

The fact of the matter is, you can’t MAKE anything go viral. It’s not about how many shares you can get from your friends and family.

It’s about great creative, great content, and some fairy magic dust.

And, just because two guys kicking one another or cute puppies might work this week doesn’t mean they won’t be overshadowed the following week by a celebrity crying over a sloth.

According to an article in The Atlantic this month, companies are installing every imaginable share button on their content, writing articles, and then praying to the viral Gods that they would become overnight success because of all of the shares.

But then, surprise! An entrepreneur named Uzi Shmilovic examined eight ways Internet giants, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, have used virality as a vehicle for success.

Shmilovic emphasizes using a “Virality Coefficient” — “how many new users on average does one user of your product ‘infect’” — to measure to virality of a piece of information. A coefficient greater than one indicates exponential growth, the type that describes wildly successful Internet campaigns like the Old Spice Guy:

So now everyone is rushing to figure out what their Virality Coefficient is in order to make their videos, podcasts, blog posts, whitepapers, and more go viral.

The problem, of course, is “making” something go viral isn’t possible. It’s not a mathematic equation. There are human beings with emotions involved. There is nothing mathematical or scientific about that.

And, as much as we like to think everyone uses the social web, it turns out there are plenty of people who don’t. In fact, more people use email than social media, despite the growing number of users at Facebook. Most people create their accounts, spend a few days discovering what everyone is talking about, accumulate some friends, and never return.

I have a better idea. Determine your vision. Invest some time (as in years). Work really hard. Build a community. Empower your brand ambassadors. Listen to your critics and detractors. Make changes. And someday, somewhere, you will have something that goes viral.

Everyone will think it was an overnight success because it’s the first time they have heard of you. But you’ll know the real secret.